Awards

May 2018 Awards

Sex Worker’s Opera

£6,750

Throughout 2018 and 2019 Sex Worker’s Opera will deliver arts advocacy workshops on including sex workers to women’s, feminist, LGBTIAQ+, migrant and BAME groups, organisations and campaigns. These workshops will build solidarity across movements, providing the tools and perspectives to make sex workers more able to participate openly without fear of stigma and exclusion in their own communities. Sex Worker’s Opera will train and mentor members to deliver and develop these workshops, building capacity for intersectional organising and long term sustainability.

Most sex workers are mothers, and sex work has long been a survival strategy for ostracised LGBTIAQ+ people and undocumented migrants. Therefore, sex workers are present in many wider marginalised identities but seldom feel safe coming forward and sharing those experiences due to division sewn by institutions in power and more privileged elements in movements.

The arts are a battleground for healthy representation of all identities. Sex workers find themselves constantly appropriated to sell controversy and sexuality, while being just as easily expendable – left to die at the end to vindicate patriarchal expectations.

Using performance art, theatre, dance, song and hip-hop, the project draws on over 70 stories from 18 countries across 6 continents to devise sex worker-led art, providing honest, complex and empowering narratives of survival against society’s violence and exclusion. Through their inreach workshops, Sex Worker’s Opera will share tools to develop and produce powerful art reclamations to sex workers in the UK.

Yarl’s Wood Befrienders (YWB) offers emotional and practical support services for women migrants and asylum seekers indefinitely detained in Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre to help them cope with the challenges of living in confinement and uncertainty. Many are victims of trafficking, modern slavery, torture, FGM, forced marriage, physical and sexual violence/abuse, or at risk of persecution in their countries for their religious or LGBTI identity. These traumatic histories further add to the negative impact of detention on their emotional well-being and mental health. They may be self-harming, suicidal, have PTSD or other mental health issues.
Befrienders offer emotional support through one-to-one visiting scheme with dedicated ‘Befrienders’, weekly drop-in sessions and annual, large-scale social events open to all detainees. YWB also offers practical support, such as clothing, underwear, shoes, suitcases, etc., for many women detained with little to no belongings. Provisions for mobile phone credit allow women to keep in touch or maintain relationships with family, friends, Befrienders, charities and solicitors. The award from the Feminist Review Trust will support the provision of detainee support sessions, fees to access medical notes, mobile phone credit and practical items such as clothing and toiletries.www.ywbefrienders.org

December 2017 Awards

Training local women as Restorative Justice Facilitators in Leicester

£6,325

The project aims to recruit and train 12 local women from a very diverse and deprived neighbourhood in Leicester as Restorative Justice Facilitators. The trained women will support and empower women in the local area to deal with conflicts within the neighbourhood. The women will be trained in restorative justice approaches, conflict resolution and management, non-violent communication, peace and relationship building. The training will enable the women to run and facilitate weekly sessions which will bring local women experiencing neighbourhood conflict and disputes together to resolve their disputes peacefully. The women will also carry out additional outreach to raise awareness about what they do and encourage women in the communities to attend weekly sessions and discuss local issues to find a common solution. Through restorative circle sessions, women will relate to other women from different cultures, religions and race, and through this interaction gain new skills and understanding of the diversity of women in the area. www.rji.org.uk

Sexual and reproductive rights with a gender and disability perspective in Argentina

£4,425

Through this project, the Red por los Derechos de las Personas con Discapacidad (REDI) will develop a virtual platform to contribute to enable women to exercise their sexual and reproductive rights (SRRs), in conditions of equality and non-discrimination. The platform will be the first of its kind in Argentina to combine gender and disability perspectives, reflecting an intersectional conception of SRRs. Although targeted at all women living in Argentina, the platform will be specially designed to ensure that disabled women are able to benefit from it. In the platform, women will find key information about the scope of their sexual and reproductive rights; a directory of resources that provide relevant counselling and services; and a friendly space to share their experiences and demands in relation to these rights. www.redi.org.ar

July 2017 Awards

Campaigning against violence against women

£2,000

The Centre for Legal Assistance for Women in Bosnia Herzegovina want to highlight the increased number of murders of women by their intimate partners, women who have been previously exposed to prolonged violence and left without institutional and community support. By organising “shocking” performances in three Bosnian cities, the group want to increase awareness and encourage citizens to get involved to challenge and condemn violence against women. With self-defence trainings in the same three cities, women will be offered a tool for basic defence from abusers, rapists, be empowered and have increased self-confidence. By joining forces with two other organisations, the Centre want to create a critical mass that will stand against violence against women, even after project ends.

In the last few years, anti-choice fundamentalist groups are more and more active in Spain, defending traditional family values and working against the right to abortion, same sex marriage and sexual education, among other issues. In 2016 the Catalan Women’s Fund (Calala Fondo de Mujeres) undertook research on who these groups are and their strategies. This led to a group of feminist organisations starting to coordinate with LGBT, migrant and health organizations in order to counter their arguments. Calala want to strengthen the capacities of the feminist movement to counter anti-choice groups and discourses through networking and training activities. In particular, they plan to

Define and monitor a common strategy to counter the influence of the anti-choice groups

Organise a workshop to develop skills on communication and argumentation against anti-choice discourses.

The project will be implemented in Barcelona, the city where Calala has its main office, but they will also involved organisations from Madrid and others cities that come to Barcelona for the workshop. Calala hope to organise a network with a common strategy

The International Federation of Women Lawyers in Ghana (FIDA) is setting up a project which addresses violence against socially excluded groups such as women living with HIV and Aids and women and girls living with disabilities. FIDA want to achieve a transformative change in the documentation of sexual and gender based that captures violent offences against socially excluded groups. Annual data from the Domestic Violence Victims Support Unit (DOVVSU) of the Ghana Police Service treats women as a homogenous group, ignoring intersections of violence against socially excluded groups, and consequently, there is no critical data on intra gender violence.

The grant from the Feminist Review Trust will support the administration of the collection of oral histories. Through the use of oral testimonies, the project intends to show how marginalization in service responses deters vulnerable women from accessing justice. A secondary use of the oral testimonies is as an education and information tool to raise public consciousness and show the differences in the nature of violence that confronts each group. Hopefully the oral testimonies will also encourage and empower women to report cases to DOVVSU as well as FIDA-Ghana’s legal aid centre. It is anticipated that DOVVSU will improve its documentation of SGBV data to make it more inclusive and take action to provide targeted services to vulnerable women.

The Feminist Review Trust is supporting Tyneside Women’s Health service users who have been affected by domestic abuse, and who have accessed domestic abuse support, to train as peer mentors. As peer mentors, the women will set up and facilitate a monthly Safer Women Peer Support Group for other women affected by domestic abuse who have already attended and completed more structured services. This is a new project, and as such, women will be involved from the beginning in shaping and developing the service. The Safer Women Peer Support Group will provide follow on support for women as they leave more formal and structured interventions. The group will offer opportunities for reflection and sharing of tools and techniques learned in support groups will enable women to explore other community facilities and find out about what else is on offer locally such as training, volunteering opportunities, and leisure activities. A vital objective of the group is to help women to develop confidence, reduce social isolation, and reduce the risk of entering future abusive relationships.

The aim is for the group to become self sustaining after a 12 month set up phase that is run by and for women survivors of domestic abuse.

We buy flowers to celebrate, to commiserate and to show love. The global supply chain for flowers is a massive industry and can often appear too difficult to tackle. Women Working Worldwide want to start right at the very beginning – where flowers are grown and by whom – and work to improve their rights.

Africa is one of the biggest suppliers of flowers to the UK. Women, who make up the majority of the flower workforce, are often forced to work overtime, during peak times like Valentine’s Day, making childcare arrangements impossible to arrange and often not being paid the proper overtime rates. Women frequently have to work on casual contracts, are discouraged from joining unions, work for very low wages and many face sexual harassment in the workplace. Many also suffer from burns, breathing difficulties and loss of sight because they are exposed to pesticides used on the flowers.

With a grant from the Feminist Review Trust, the Flower Power campaign will start at the beginning of February – before Valentines Day (14 February) – and run for one month. The website www.women-ww.org will have a quiz, pledges, competition, blogs and a video. It will also show who is affected, what the issues are, why the issues are important, where and how people can campaign, and what steps people can take in order to promote equality, reduce consumption and buy ethically and responsibly.

December 2016 Awards

Eastern European women’s support group

£5,000

The Mediation and Advice Project CIC provides social welfare advice, community mediation and training services, and with this award will establish an Eastern European Women’s Support Group and volunteering programme, in the Southend and Castle Point Boroughs of Essex. The project will provide a fortnightly support group to share experiences and support, reduce isolation and provide a positive voice within a community for local women who are currently isolated, vulnerable, living in temporary or caravan accommodation, experiencing abuse or discrimination and on low incomes. Women attending the group will be able to participate in a dedicated comprehensive training programme, to train as mentors, advisers and guiders. These roles will help the women practice English language skills, learn new skills to access employment or education and engage with the wider community through volunteering and advice provision. The award from the Feminist Review Trust will fund a Project Co-ordinator to design, implement, organise and develop the Project and provide travel expenses for the volunteers who take part.

Pakasipiti Zimbabwe seeks to highlight specific challenges of LBT women, including how LBT women often remain undocumented. The project will engage in a process that highlights the narratives of LBT women in relation to rights, bodily autonomy and choice in a manner that makes them visible them. It seeks to shift negative attitudes rooted in ignorance. The project will create not only knowledge and facilitate documentation of LBT issues but also ensure that they also deal with issues of wellness and mental health.

The goal of Pakasipiti is to challenge pervasive human rights violations targeted against LBT women and to advocate for continued protection, wellness care and support for women who suffer discrimination, stigma, prejudice, torture, and abuse as a direct consequence of their sexuality.

Sonic Cyberfeminisms is a 2-day event to be held at the University of Lincoln and nearby venues on 5 – 6 May 2017. Consisting of workshops, talks and performances, the event will bring together artists, academics and the wider public to address the participation of women, girls and other gendered minorities in the often male-dominated fields of music technology, audio production and sonic arts.

In recent years, the relationship between sound, gender and technology has gained increasing attention. There have been a number of artist networks, archives and educational initiatives established in the hope of tackling the gendered exclusions from and disparities within the technocentric fields of electronic music and audio production. Many of these projects can be understood to share some of the concerns and ideals of cyberfeminism. Emerging in the early 1990s, cyberfeminism sought to explore the potentials and possibilities of technology, computing and Cyberspace for feminist praxis.

Sonic Cyberfeminisms will provide an opportunity to critically reflect upon and innovatively contribute to current activism and debates concerning sound, gender and technology, while also drawing attention to the work of women in the fields of electronic music and sound technology; and encouraging women and girls to get involved in these fields.

The funding provided by the Feminist Review Trust will be fund five bursaries. In helping to cover travel, accommodation and childcare costs, these bursaries will allow the participation of women who would not otherwise be able to attend.

Arsal is a poor Lebanese town of 35,000 in the mountains near the Syrian border. Since 2013, at least 70,000 Syrian refugees have been accommodated there, in tents and ramshackle buildings, enduring harsh winters and stifling summers, with dwindling savings and decreasing hopes of a speedy return to their Syrian homes. The presence of the refugees, as well as militant groups in the neighbouring hills, and army checkpoints, has caused significant strain to the town’s economy.

Edinburgh Direct Aid has been providing support to refugees in Arsal since 2013. EDA volunteers despatch aid donated by the Scottish public, and regularly visit the town to distribute the aid and buy immediate necessities like fuel oil and medicine. From 2015, EDA has also been implementing a more long term strategy to combat the growing idleness and despair in the town – funding camp schools for the many children missing education, and setting up a training and workshop centre, where short vocational courses impart useful skills, and facilities are available for community activities.

The Feminist Review Trust is funding a women’s workshop in the centre. It provides access to computers, informal knitting groups and a sewing workshop. It is also funding four two-month vocational courses for women in subjects for which there is the greatest demand, and of the most immediate benefit in the community – English language, sewing, literacy, and First Aid.

With funding from the Feminist Review Trust and matched funding totalling £12,000, Saheliya will provide 10 hours of Arabic Support each week for female Syrian women, girls aged 12+ and other Arabic speaking clients. The Arabic Support Worker will give specific one to one support to enable women to take part in their front line services which include counselling, therapeutic services, one to one support and group sessions. She will also help resolve any issues regarding schools, housing, health, utility bills etc at a weekly drop in service and provide support within their ESOL beginners and intermediate classes. Saheliya will arrange ‘Living and Learning in Edinburgh’ outings to give women the opportunity to get to know the main city and the surrounding districts where they may be housed

The Support Worker will work closely with Arabic speaking girls aged 12+ to encourage and support them to take part in Young Saheliya activities. This will give the girls an opportunity to mix with others from a wide range of communities, receive support within schools and colleges and identify future employment prospects. Girls will also be supported to take part in creative activities such as dance, music and arts and crafts so they can have enjoy themselves and have fun.

The idea for The Vange Women’s Network came from a group of women in Vange in Basildon Essex, who discussed what they needed in order to change their lives. Many of the women feel isolated and face many disadvantages. With funding from the Feminist Review Trust they will plan a series of inspirational and practical workshops, supported by mentors, who will work together with them to explore their hopes, dreams and aspirations and help them create their own personal development plans. They will discuss role models and body image and will have the opportunity to learn new skills, lead healthier lifestyles, and importantly, take control of their lives. The women want to be an inspiration to their children and this programme will help them to build the foundations needed to empower them to take control of their lives and explore their place in the community.

Leicester Mammas is a Community Programme, run by local mothers for local mothers. Based in one of the most diverse, multicultural communities in the UK, with high levels of child poverty and health and social inequalities, the group support pregnant and new mothers to adapt to motherhood and especially to breastfeed their babies. Their community values breastfeeding and understands the important role it plays in supporting health and well-being, yet many women still face barriers, with those facing the worst hardships and crisis the least likely to establish and maintain breastfeeding.

Breastfeeding is not the responsibility of individual women, but the responsibility of the whole of society. In 2016 there is a Call to Action by breastfeeding organisations for a national breastfeeding strategy. The group will use the grant to contribute to the discussion and be an effective voice at a national level to ensure the issue of how infant feeding and inequalities are linked, and how this affects the lives of the poorest in society (and cost to society), is given a higher profile.

The project will enable volunteers to gain the skills and confidence, as well as the practical means to participate in the discussions and get their opinions heard. Volunteers will be able to attend conferences and participate in meetings of the newly formed All Party Parliamentary Group on Infant Feeding and Inequalities. The award will also be used to increase awareness across Leicester of their work and why this project is needed.

The Syrian crisis has forced its people to flee war atrocities to neighboring countries. Jordan, despite scarce resources and lack of sufficient professionals, has hosted Syrian refugees and tried to provide for their many immediate needs. However, the most vulnerable refugees are women and girls who were sexually abused and tortured.

During 2014, UC Berkeley’s School of Social Welfare and Dr. Niveen Rizkalla have conducted a study on mental health of Syrian refugees in Jordanian host-communities and their helpers – professionals working with Syrian refugees at 30 organisations. A preliminary analysis indicates that professionals are buckling under the pressure of coping with refugees’ unmet needs, mental health impacts, as well as an enormous need for supervision, training and education of practical skills, especially in sexual violence topics.

The influx of refugees in Jordan together with the lack of sufficient training and support when coping with complex issues, leave professionals in a vulnerable and frustrating position with an inability to effectively assist refugees, which eventually harm the refugees.

The award from the Feminist Review Trust will support a training project in Arabic that addresses the specific needs/capacities of senior staff who work at multiple organisations via one month of intensive workshops on best practices of coping with sexual violence of refugees. The project will target the training of senior staff to enable them to train others, and expand the networking within each organisation and across organisations. This working model will boost future independent collaborations, opportunities to maximize resources and the sharing of knowledge, all of which benefit the refugee, local populations and staff.

Afghan women – newly arrived in the UK

£3,376

This project will support newly arrived Afghan women suffering from depression due to the trauma of war, stressful journeys and isolation. The Afghanistan and Central Asian Association will invite ten to fifteen women to attend workshops. They will work with local groups including organisations that work with people from minority ethnic backgrounds, colleges and community centres to ensure the project has the target number of attendees required to make it viable. Each workshop would be confirmed three to four weeks in advance to ensure there is ample time for promotion and outreach. Quarterly evaluation sessions will also be conducted with attendees to get feedback on the workshops. This will allow participants to have a key role in choosing topics covered at the workshops. Gaining skills and achieving heightened autonomy will help local women in multiple pursuits including job seeking, raising awareness, balancing a healthy home and leading a fulfilling social life. The workshops will cover topics such as integration, social cohesion and women’s rights. Podcasts of the presentations given will be made available to the community through our website to ensure as many women as possible have access to the materials, not just those who attend.

Saffron Records is a Social Enterprise running as a Community Interest Company. Launched in September 2015, it seeks to change the way women are perceived within the music industry, one empowered woman at a time. As the first female youth record label, Saffron Records is creating safer foundations for young women age 16­24 to access the music industry with confidence and courage to succeed.

Saffron Records wants to encourage the young women they work with to have a voice and offer them a platform to amplify these voices, focusing on musicality, not sexuality. They offer artists mentoring and development on a one to one basis in Bristol. This can include anything from vocal training, to creative writing, to stage presence, to identity and self-promotion. The grant will be used for costs of mentoring and rehearsal hire space.

Led by Isango Coalition Group against Poverty and Disease, this projects will produce high quality, low cost sanitary napkins for over 150,000 school girls and rural women in the western region of Uganda to enable them to attend school, participate in sport and improve their health and hygiene. The biodegradable sanitary napkins produced will be sold at an affordable price of US$0.07 over the production costs of US$0.40. The income earned will be used to sustain the project.

Youth victims of domestic violence

£1,807.68

The Harmony Project is the only specialist domestic abuse refuge in England to work exclusively with young women aged 16-24 and their children. The project is operated by Crossroads Derbyshire, a Women’s Aid affiliated domestic abuse provider, and is located in the High Peak area of Derbyshire. The project provides a place of safety for an average of 22 young women and their children each year from across the UK. Police figures show that women in this age group are the most at risk of sexual violence, forced marriage and online grooming.

With funding from the Feminist Review Trust, the charity will set up a Survivors’ Support Group for young women who have moved on from the refuge and have settled into their own tenancies in the local area. The group will offer peer support for young women living in the community after they have escaped and recovered from abuse. It will also provide ongoing advice on keeping themselves safe, and on housing, education, finance, parenting, self-esteem and any other needs. The group will also encourage young women to take on a mentoring role for new residents when they first come into refuge.

The group will be encouraged to contribute to the national debate on domestic abuse services for younger women via forums and panels. The women are willing to produce short videos for circulation on social media, to talk to commissioners and contribute to future academic studies.

MRANG was established as a registered charity in 2004 to meet the unaddressed needs of female refugees and asylum seekers in Merseyside, with a focus at that time on pre & post-natal support. The organisation has since grown to offer a wide range of support to women refugees and asylum seekers, including victims of trafficking, sexual violence, domestic servitude and other gender based violence. The women face multiple disadvantages, for example mental and physical health problems, poverty compounded by the fact that they will be in a marginalised group and will experience prejudice.

MRANG provides two outreach sessions per week where women and their children get an opportunity to make friends, get a hot meal and access our support services. The outreach team undertakes weekly visits to accommodation centres to engage with women new to the area. MRANG also runs a very popular weekly afterschool club where children get extra support from teachers to help with their homework and women receive English language classes from an ESOL qualified teacher. The family support team offer a wide variety of crucial support and advocacy services. The Feminist Review Trust award will contribute towards the running costs during 2016.

Gramin Mahila Sriajanshil Pariwar (GMSP) is a long established and very effective women-led community development group in the Sindhupalchowk district of Nepal, working to combat women and child slavery and trafficking, gender violence and to promote economic development and women’s health – all major concerns in this hilly and poor district, north of Kathmandu, where many men migrate to work overseas and where levels of trafficking are notoriously high.

Sindhupalchowk was at the epicentre of the 2015 earthquakes and since then GMSP has been one of the lead local organisations co-ordinating emergency post earthquake aid in the district for both men and women, with a particular emphasis on psycho-social support.

Working with Disabled Human Rights Centre Nepal, GMSP became concerned that disabled women were not fully engaged or included in their mission to empower and support rural women. GMSP are now working to

become thoroughly disability inclusive at every level from the village based self help groups which are at their core, through the whole organisational structure (including staff and board), using the skills and expertise of the Disabled Human Rights Centre to provide disability training and awareness raising.

The Feminist Review Trust’s support will also enable GMSP to set up three disabled women’s self help groups with approximately 12 women in each and to make their office more disability friendly by installing an accessible toilet in their current temporary (post earthquake) offices and funding for other accessibility features.

March 2016 Awards

Polish domestic violence helpline

£2,862

The Polish Domestic Violence Helpline is a dedicated helpline offering support to Polish speaking women who are affected by domestic abuse in England. Currently the helpline operates one day per week, taking calls from people who are at risk themselves or who are concerned about someone who is at risk of domestic abuse. Referrals are made to the Multi Agency Risk Assessment Conference (MARAC) in their area so that local agencies can work together to provide a response to the abusive situation.

The award from the Feminist Review Trust will provide for a computer, the setting up and using of broadband and a secure data management system – Modus. It is hoped these tools will enable the service to provide women with better information about available help and support and to refer families more effectively to appropriate agencies for further support

The war and the pre-existing feudal-patriarchal societal structures in Syria have a negative impact on the development of children, women and therefore for the whole family. Further, people are strongly affected by the embargo, poverty and the lack of education possibilities for children. Under the slogan “A free woman is basic for a free society”, the Foundation of Free Woman in Rojava (WJAR) runs sustainable projects to improve the gender, health, economic and ecological situation in society. WJAR seeks to limit patriarchal attitudes by opening kindergardens for children aged 3 to 6.

With the support of the Feminist Review Trust, WJAR is running a special education programme to improve gender and ethnic equality for one year. In the kindergarden, children are open, full of energy, and wanting to discover themselves and the world. This is the right of children. The staff members at the kindergarden are trained in child care. This includes the psychology of children and families and the support needs of children affected and suffering under the circumstances of war and violence. The training seeks to improve the support of gender and ethnical equality in daily work, how to operate in an intercultural environment and how to support family problems.

With trained teachers, the quality of the children’s care is growing. For the first time in Syria, children will learn about the different cultures and ethnics of Syria and Rojava.

Equality-based Community Support and Training (ECSAT) is a registered local non- governmental, non- profitable and charitable organisation established in Galle, Sri Lanka in 2005.

ECSAT has offered training for disabled women in a residential home in Galle. However, they have been unable to target the needs of all the women due to minimal resources. Many women are severely disabled and are locked up in their rooms, with no facilities for visitors or other activities. They have not been to school and have few social skills due to isolation within their own families.

Through continuous research and by word of mouth since 2009, ECSAT has identified 34 vulnerable disabled women in the Galle district who are at risk of being institutionalised.

ECSAT is delivering a project to de- institutionalise the daily life of residents of Bonavista and prevent institutionalisation for disabled women living with families in the Galle community. ECSAT will provide disability rights training, vocational training and social and Life skills training for both residents and women in the community.

Young women in the North East of England traditionally out perform boys at GCSE level but are greatly underrepresented in industries such as Engineering, Construction, Sciences and others which are traditionally seen as the preserve of males. This is not because they do not have the skills to work in these areas but sometimes they do not have the right information about these industries and low aspirations about what they could do.

This award is for a one day event to bring together young women with role models from these industries to inspire and widen their horizons, encouraging them to consider GCSE subjects, jobs and careers previously viewed as only for suitable for males. 80 female students selected by schools in deprived areas of Newcastle will attend.

The event will focus on the Young Enterprise principle of ‘learning by doing’ and be an active and engaging day, providing information and support to the students through the engagement of local employers. The students will gain an insight and practice the key employability skills that employers are looking for of teamwork, communication, resilience, confidence, initiative, financial capability, organisation and problem solving. On the day the students will work in teams on group activities , which will challenge them to develop their team working , problem solving, decision making and presentation skills which are key to working in these sectors.